Sunday, December 30, 2012

Bwogyrim #1 (Skyrim Game Review)

Just played Skyrim for about an hour (I'm at the bear, if that's any indication to how I'm savoring the experience), and here's my initial observations:1. I'm playing an Argonian. It's been my favorite race since Morrowind, and really even in Daggerfall. Beast races in MW couldn't wear full-face helmets or boots. That's pretty game-changing right there (especially when there's a pair of boots that grants levitation just by putting them on), but it always bothered me that their tails just sort of poked out of the back of whatever pants they were wearing. There's literally been no effort whatsoever to address this from a design standpoint - and it continues in Skyrim. I'm not being ultra-picky here either. My character's head is full of spiny horns that magically disappear when he puts on a hat and both of his swords utilize Time Lord Technology to somehow fit into the same sheath - can we not harness that power to make my flexible tail tuck under my robe or put a flap in the back of the armor or something? If you're going to limit my gaming experience with something like "You have a lizard nose so you can't wear a helmet with a face-shield," but allow my tail to just glitch through my greaves like no one play-tested using two of your ten playable races, shouldn't you then include some sort of cool perk that the other characters can't have? A plague that only kills Humans, available as part of a quest to Khajiit and Argonians only, should totally be part of the deal.2. Why do the skeletons in the dungeon have gold on them? Maybe they were hiding the coins in their skull cavity, but I think the guards would have taken it by now (they're sort of jerks like that). And when you figure that out, maybe you can explain how the spiders are carrying pocket change too?3. Some of the menu navigation is obviously not ported well. I'm using the keyboard instead of the mouse just because it's much easier, and that kind of seems like a pretty basic thing to tweak. Not a big deal, just weird.Those three points aside (and I can't say they hinder my experience in any measurable way), the game rocks so far. Dual-wielding is going to take some getting used to, but the stance looks totally rockin', as do the Argonians in general. The opening sequence wasn't entirely new to me (I said I didn't own the game until today... I totally looked up videos on YouTube for the entire first week it was out though), but I did really jump at one point with the dragon. Well done Bethesda. Now get to work on my T-Virus DLC.